This invention relates to apparatus for handling fabric work pieces and in particular but not exclusively relates to apparatus for feeding, transferring and stacking limp fabric work pieces to and through automatic or semi-automatic process machines such as, for example, garment processing machines.
The manufacture of clothing and other products from cloth or like flexible sheet material can be achieved by sewing and other processes applied to pre-cut work pieces usually delivered in stacks to the processing machines. The manufacture of other articles such as drapery, footwear, soft furnishings, auto seat covers and trims, and the like can also be achieved from assemblies of sewn or bonded pieces cut from webs of material. Normally, the productivity of the industries manufacturing these products is limited by the ability of operators to pick up and gain control of the individual pieces and present them in matched assemblies to adjustable process machines.
Process machines are available which are designed to perform particular operational functions such as control of the direction of sewing, positioning of work pieces, machine stop/start and other known desired functions in the manufacture of an article from fabric or like flexible material.
In order to feed these sewing and other machines, various devices have been proposed with the object of gaining control of the material and separating individual pieces from a cut stack of pieces. In the past, methods of operation used for feeding such machines have met with varying degrees of success due to the porosity and handling variables of the material and the comparative limp nature of fabric materials, and difficulties of separation from following pieces in a stack presents additional problems.
A number of devices have been designed in an attempt to solve fabric feeding problems. One type of known device relies upon adhesion to a sticky surface; another utilizes inwardly closing prongs in the manner of a chuck; another uses the needles of textile card cloth to pinch the surface ply; another uses the uniformly angularly oriented needles of card cloth for unidirectional frictional contact and pick-off; and yet another uses air suction members. Having gained control of the top piece of cloth, various means have been used to separate the piece without displacement of the other pieces in a stack, since any such movement would spoil the accuracy of engagement of the subsequent pieces and thus positioning would be inaccurate.
These devices have proved successful but are limited to feeding a single sheet, or a preselected number of sheets of the same shape, between two locations only and therefore do not solve the problem of the fabric or clothing manufacturer of providing a device capable of assembling a number of sheets of various shapes from several locations for presentation in the desired alignment and sequence to a process machine in an automatically or semi-automatically controlled operation. A further important requirement in the fabric processing industry which can not be performed successfully by these prior devices is the facility to selectively disengage at a desired location one or some of the engaged sheets during the assembly operation.
It is an object, therefore, of the present invention to overcome the known fabric feeding problems by providing apparatus which incorporates a device or devices which first engage the first sheet or sheets of a stack, and while still maintaining control of the first sheet or sheets can engage with precise positioning a series of additional sheets and manipulate each in sequence in order to assemble and control the assembly of sheets or work pieces, either to present them to a process machine or control them through a normal sewing or other bonding machine. Eventually a stack of the sewn or processed assemblies can be made or the device can be used to maintain control and transfer the assemblies to other machines.
Thus this invention is capable of controlling flexible material including fabric or limp material through the manufacturing operations of sewing, pressing, cutting, fusing, creasing, printing, and so on, so that clothing and like fabric articles can be automatically manufactured, without manual assistance. The mechanisms necessary to sense and control the transporting and positioning movements of the device during assembly processing of the sheets or work pieces are well known in prior art.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a device having the ability to engage a first sheet or sheets, and then to pick up and separate additional sheets in conjunction and in series, and disengage or re-engage the last sheet or any number of the sheets picked up, while retaining the first engaged sheet or sheets thereon.